Impressionism

Impressionism did not begin as a movement. It began as an insult.

In April 1874, a group of painters who had been repeatedly rejected by the official Salon held their own exhibition in the studio of photographer Félix Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. Among the works on display was Claude Monet's small harbour view, painted at Le Havre in 1872 — a sketch of dawn mist, orange sun, and dark water. A critic named Louis Leroy seized on its title, "Impression, Sunrise," and wrote a mocking review: if this was an impression, it was less finished than wallpaper.

The artists adopted the name and turned the insult into a manifesto. What they shared was not a unified style but a set of refusals: refusal of the smooth, blended finish the Académie demanded; refusal of mythological and historical subjects; refusal of the studio as the only legitimate site of painting. In their place, they offered the fleeting — light as it actually behaves, colour as it actually appears, modern Parisian life as it actually unfolds.

The collapsible metal paint tube, patented by American painter John Goffe Rand in 1841, made it possible to carry pre-mixed colour into the landscape and work for hours without returning to the studio. Combined with the expanding French rail network, the tube transformed not just technique but the very location of painting.

The Impressionists were not, for most of their careers, celebrated or solvent. The eight independent exhibitions they organised between 1874 and 1886 frequently lost money. Monet wrote begging letters to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for years. Renoir and Sisley struggled chronically. Cézanne, supported by his wealthy banker father, was regarded by most of his peers as an eccentric who would never quite succeed.

The group was economically diverse in ways that created friction. Caillebotte and Berthe Morisot came from upper-class families and could afford to buy their colleagues' work — Caillebotte acquired thirty-eight Impressionist paintings and bequeathed them to the French state, a bequest the government initially refused. Degas came from a banking family that collapsed in the 1870s.

The dealer Paul Durand-Ruel is perhaps the most important single figure in the movement's eventual commercial success. He took financial risks on Impressionist work throughout the 1870s when almost no one else would. The turning point came in New York in 1886: American collectors bought with an enthusiasm French collectors had withheld for two decades.

The Impressionists were not, for most of their careers, celebrated or solvent. The eight independent exhibitions they organised between 1874 and 1886 frequently lost money. Monet wrote begging letters to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for years. Renoir and Sisley struggled chronically. Cézanne, supported by his wealthy banker father, was regarded by most of his peers as an eccentric who would never quite succeed.

The group was economically diverse in ways that created friction. Caillebotte and Berthe Morisot came from upper-class families and could afford to buy their colleagues' work — Caillebotte acquired thirty-eight Impressionist paintings and bequeathed them to the French state, a bequest the government initially refused. Degas came from a banking family that collapsed in the 1870s.

The dealer Paul Durand-Ruel is perhaps the most important single figure in the movement's eventual commercial success. He took financial risks on Impressionist work throughout the 1870s when almost no one else would. The turning point came in New York in 1886: American collectors bought with an enthusiasm French collectors had withheld for two decades.

The Impressionists were not, for most of their careers, celebrated or solvent. The eight independent exhibitions they organised between 1874 and 1886 frequently lost money. Monet wrote begging letters to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for years. Renoir and Sisley struggled chronically. Cézanne, supported by his wealthy banker father, was regarded by most of his peers as an eccentric who would never quite succeed.

The group was economically diverse in ways that created friction. Caillebotte and Berthe Morisot came from upper-class families and could afford to buy their colleagues' work — Caillebotte acquired thirty-eight Impressionist paintings and bequeathed them to the French state, a bequest the government initially refused. Degas came from a banking family that collapsed in the 1870s.

The dealer Paul Durand-Ruel is perhaps the most important single figure in the movement's eventual commercial success. He took financial risks on Impressionist work throughout the 1870s when almost no one else would. The turning point came in New York in 1886: American collectors bought with an enthusiasm French collectors had withheld for two decades.